


The Back Room

by mightbeanasshole



Series: The Company We Keep (Fake AH Crew AU) [3]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 17:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4572534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbeanasshole/pseuds/mightbeanasshole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't maim for fun or revenge--it's an explicit rule for every member of the crew.  It exists to maintain order, to keep them tight, and to allow Geoff to continue to wrest what little sleep he can from their calmer nights. But Michael learns that for their boss, there may be exceptions to every rule.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Back Room

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after "The Lion's Den" and before "QED" -- approximately six months after the Lads join the Crew.

Geoff’s hands are shaking as he pushes Michael out to the front of the pet store.

Geoff and Jack no longer run their base from the club next door, but there had been something comfortable about the pet store that kept Geoff coming back. That, and the fact that there is a drain in the floor in the back room.

Michael hadn’t understood what he had seen just a minute before when he walked into the back room.

Everything about the little room was disorienting, and maybe Geoff liked it that way. Maybe that made it the perfect setting for sit-downs and hostage negotiation. In the split second before Jack spotted him, Michael’s brain had gone electric trying to piece together the images.

The man’s blood looked black somehow, washed in the pink neon shining out of the myriad fish tanks that lined the room. The overhead light was off, and the lights from individual tanks swam over the man in the center of the room in strange patterns--the blood and the patterns forming a kind of dazzle camouflage, making it hard for Michael’s eyes to understand where the man began and ended.

Black blood and pink viscera, two bodies tangled, Jack across the man’s front, their weight pressed into the tops of his thighs.

As if they were giving him a lap dance.

Michael shakes his head now and doesn’t turn away from Geoff. He had seen… what _had_ he seen? Much more intimate than a lap dance. Jack had their hands _inside_ the man--and he was still alive. Over the solid wall of sound, the droning of the fish tank air filters and buzzing of the neon lights, Michael had heard the distinct sound of three sets of hard, ragged breathing: Geoff, Jack, and the man between them.

Michael can tell by looking at Geoff now that the man wants to put a hand on his shoulder, to touch him in some way that will steady him--but Geoff’s hands are covered in the black blood. He’s rolled his dress shirt up to his elbows, and his hands are slicked with blood that seeps into the white cuffs high up his arms.

He’d placed a single hand on Michael’s chest as he pushed his employee out of the back room. Michael can feel the blood where it’s sticking to him through his shirt.

And because Geoff can’t touch Michael with his hands, he holds them out from his body as they shake slightly.

“You should be back at my place,” Geoff says. Michael tries to drill into the sound of his voice, to parse out what is unsaid, what it means.

“I went to see Gavin,” Michael says, trying to infuse his voice with the same neutral coolness that his boss has mastery over. “And I wanted to see you.”

Geoff’s face goes hard, changes shape as the man works his lips and chews something invisible. Maybe it was a misstep to acknowledge right now that Geoff is more than simply Michael’s boss, to acknowledge that he might be in an emotional turmoil after the heist had soured.

“How’s Gavin?” Geoff asks, finally.

“Unconscious still,” Michael says. “But Kdin’s got him on a pretty intense drug cocktail. Didn’t want him waking up in the middle of sewing up his goddamn guts, I guess.”

\---

There is a lot that Geoff wants to say to Michael in this moment, and no way for him to get any of it out.

He wants to say that he’s sorry the Lads ever joined up with Geoff’s crew. He wants to say that he regrets dragging their young lives into something that was so much bigger than them. He wants to tell Michael how much he regrets the fact that Michael’s best friend is now lying in a goddamn warehouse four miles away, gutshot and bleeding.

But every piece of him that has come to love Michael is being suffocated by the pieces of Geoff that are his boss. The parts of him that don’t apologize for anything. The pieces that acknowledge that this is their work.

It is important to be neutral. Business is business. Michael and Gavin and Ray knew the risks when they joined. Maybe, like Ryan, they had joined _for_ the risks.

“What are you doing in there?” Michael asks when Geoff doesn’t respond to the news about Gavin. Geoff can’t hide a laugh that’s dry and bitter as rye.

“What did it look like, Michael?” Geoff says, shaking his head. “We were just feeding the fish.”

\---

It’s not the violence that shocks Michael. Each member of the crew has killed--and often.

It’s the closeness--the hands-on aspect, the image of Jack pushing slender fingers into the man’s torso as he shook and sucked breaths.

Geoff allowed mayhem, allowed them to carry blades, even allowed them to torture when they needed information. But maiming for fun--or revenge--was against the rules. Close-quarters suffering for the sake of suffering was simply against Geoff’s policies for the crew. Michael had listened to Geoff explain this to a pouting Ryan time and time again.

Geoff had towered over a man bound and prone in an alley the first time Michael had heard him say it to Ryan.

“We don’t need anything from him, Ryan,” Geoff had said. Ryan had frowned. “You start getting into this tonight and you think that’ll be the end of it? You’re going to get sloppy.”

The man on the ground in between them had whimpered at that.

“Fine,” Ryan had said after a moment. “I won’t have _any_ fun then.”

Ryan had turned and shot the man in the back of the head, terminating him neatly. With the suppressor, it hadn’t sounded like much of anything, and they left the body there where it lay.

Was there a different rule for Jack, then?

\---

“You’ve always said we can’t,” Michael says--sounding more curious than argumentative. The statement makes Geoff angrier than it should. Regardless of what they may share off hours, Michael is his employee. He’d taken an oath. The Lads handed their lives over to him when they had merged with the crew, and that didn’t mean that they only got the good parts of what that meant.

It meant not having to think for themselves, protect themselves, feed themselves--yes. But it also meant trusting Geoff without explanation. It meant following orders and having faith that Geoff was going to sort things straight.

“I’ve always said you can’t,” Geoff echoes back to him.

“That’s the guy, isn’t it? The one who shot Gavin.”

“And if it is?” Geoff asks.

“The rules are different for Jack,” Michael says. “I get that.”

“Jack would’ve done this either way,” Geoff says, not knowing now why he’s explaining himself but doing it anyway. “Jack would’ve shot me to get to him. I needed to be here to make sure they were safe.”

Michael looks very young in the dim light as he chews his lip. Geoff looks at the palm print of blood he’s left on the other man’s shirt.

“You’re not normally--I thought you didn’t like blood,” Michael says.

“Still don’t,” Geoff says. “This is about Jack and Gavin--not the guy who’s about to be a corpse in there.”

“They really love Gavin, don’t they?” Michael asks.

“Profoundly, Michael,” Geoff says.

There is a silent question in Michael’s eyes that Geoff isn’t ready to answer. For a few beats, they simply stand there breathing. Geoff wishes to hell that he had a drink.

“Your hands are shaking,” Michael says.

“They are,” Geoff says.

“You really _don’t_ like to be this close to it, do you?” Michael asks.

“Go on back to Gavin, Michael,” Geoff says, ignoring his question. “We don’t need you here.”

“Will you come home tonight?” Michael asks. It’s not a plea--just a question.

“You still want to see me after this?” Geoff asks.

Michael nods.

“Then I’ll come home tonight,” Geoff says.

Michael nods and sets his shoulders before turning to walk out of the pet shop, as casual as someone who has just dropped by to purchase a goldfish. Geoff swallows back whatever it is that he’s feeling now and prepares again for the smell of sweat and gore.

 

 


End file.
